Double your money in pinks.

[rrufff]

Yes, unsolicited pinkies - pinksheets.com has a very good explanation.

Basically, it means that there is no MM sponsorship. They are not allowed to buy for their account and have inventory for when you want to buy (and vice versa on a sell).

So the ruse is that they are merely "matching trades."

I believe that they circumvent that and you can look at the tape during busy times and see that the patterns are such that the create some of the trades, perhaps back and forth, to make trades look like they match. It doesn't make sense that retail would be flipping for a fraction of a penny, but we see trades like that, where the commission would cover most or all of the profit, etc.

To get off "unsolicited" status, a MM typically requests full quoting status by filing with the NASD under SEC Rule 15 C 2-11 or by using an exemption (e.g., piggy back on another MM quote.)